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As part of the larger, ongoing movement throughout Latin America to reclaim non-Hispanic cultural heritages and identities, indigenous writers in Mexico are reappropriating the written word in their ancestral tongues and in Spanish. As a result, the long-marginalized, innermost feelings, needs, and worldviews of Mexico's ten to twenty million indigenous peoples are now being widely revealed to the Western societies with which these peoples coexist. To contribute to this process and serve as a bridge of intercultural communication and understanding, this groundbreaking, three-volume anthology gathers works by the leading generation of writers in thirteen Mexican indigenous languages: Nahuatl, Maya, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Tabasco Chontal, Purepecha, Sierra Zapoteco, Isthmus Zapoteco, Mazateco, Ñahñu, Totonaco, and Huichol.
Volume Three contains plays by six Mexican indigenous writers. Their plays appear first in their native language, followed by English and Spanish translations. Montemayor and Frischmann have abundantly annotated the Spanish, English, and indigenous-language texts and added glossaries and essays that introduce the work of each playwright and discuss the role of theater within indigenous communities. These supporting materials make the anthology especially accessible and interesting for nonspecialist readers seeking a greater understanding of Mexico's indigenous peoples.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments/Agradecimientos
- Abbreviations/Abreviaturas
- Regarding the Indigenous Languages and Alphabets in This Volume/Acerca de los idiomas y alfabetos indígenas de este volumen
- Theater, Which Once Was Dance / El teatro, que alguna vez fue danza (Carlos Montemayor)
- A Question of Balance: Indigenous Theater at the Conjunction of Millennia / Buscando el equilibrio: Teatro indígena en la conjunción de milenios (Donald Frischmann)
- 1. Feliciano Sánchez Chan (Mayan/maya)
- 2. Carlos Armando Dzul Ek (Mayan/maya)
- Bix úuchik u bo'ot ku'si'ip'il "Manilo'ob" tu ja'abil 1562
- The Maní Inquisition or the Colliding of Two Cultures
- El auto de fe de Maní o Choque de dos culturas
- 3. Sna Jtz'ibajom (Tzotzil/tzotzil)
- Skotol ta skotol
- From All for All
- De todos para todos
- 4. Petrona de la Cruz (Tzotzil/tzotzil)
- Ilbajinel xchi'uk lekilal ta tz'akal
- Hell and Hope
- Infierno y esperanza
- 5. Isabel Juárez Espinosa (Tzeltal/tzeltal)
- Mach' atik ya xlok'ik
- Migration
- Migración
- 6. Ildefonso Maya (Nahuatl/náhuatl)
- Ixtlamatinij
- The Learned Ones
- Ixtlamatinij
- English Glossary
- Glosario español
- Sources of the Plays/Fuentes de las obras de teatro
About the author
Edited by Carlos Montemayor and Donald Frischmann
Summary
The third and final book in a major three-volume trilingual anthology of Mexican indigenous writing.
